Topic: Harare

Vladmir Putin’s political opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky was convicted of money laundering and embezzlement yesterday in what many have denounced as a show-trial. The verdict came as no surprise to Khodorkovsky, who calmly read a book as the judge issued the decision. U.S. officials have offered some token condemnations of the conviction, but clearly the Obama administration is unwilling to take any action that might disrupt the “reset” process with Russia just days after the New START treaty was ratified by Congress.

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangarai may be brought up on treason charges, after WikiLeaks cables revealed that he privately asked the U.S. to keep sanctions against his country in place: “State media reports have said hardline supporters of the president, Robert Mugabe, want an official inquiry into Tsvangirai’s discussion of international sanctions with the US ambassador in Harare. Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party said last week the government should draft a law that makes it a treasonable offence to call for sanctions.” The punishment for high treason is the death penalty in Zimbabwe. Tsvangarai, a longtime foe of the dictatorial Mugabe, has discovered that being inside his government may be as dangerous as being outside of it.

President Obama continues to use the argument that Guantanamo Bay is al Qaeda’s “number one recruitment tool.” But how often do terror leaders actually mention Gitmo? At the Weekly Standard, Thomas Joscelyn scours the transcripts of the public speeches of al Qaeda leaders since 2009, and finds that very few refer to the detention facility.

The unwillingness of many libertarians to compromise ideological principles – even among themselves – prevents the movement from gaining any serious political power, writes Christopher Beam in New York magazine: “It’s no coincidence that most libertarians discover the philosophy as teenagers. At best, libertarianism means pursuing your own self-interest, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else. At worst, as in Ayn Rand’s teachings, it’s an explicit celebration of narcissism. ‘Man’s first duty is to himself,’ says the young architect Howard Roark in his climactic speech in The Fountainhead. ‘His moral obligation is to do what he wishes.’ Roark utters these words after dynamiting his own project, since his vision for the structure had been altered without his permission. The message: Never compromise.”

In case you needed a reminder on what a joke the UN is, Mary Katharine Ham rounded up the top 10 most “UN-believable” moments of 2010. Number 4: “The UN narrowly avoided putting Iran on its Commission on the Status of Women — a sort of sop to the Islamic Republic in the wake of its rejection for the Human Rights Council — thanks to loud push-back from the U.S. and human-rights groups. Perhaps stoning was a bridge too far. But it does now boast Saudi Arabia as a member of the commission. Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, must always wear abaya in public, and are punished for being in public without a male relative as an escort.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas criticizes Israel as an obstacle to peace, and promises that an independent state of Palestine won’t allow a single Israeli within its borders. “We have frankly said, and always will say: If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it,” Abbas told reporters on Saturday. (Cue crickets chirping from the left).

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Goldberg groundlessly worries about whether Israel will soon cease being a democracy: “Let’s just say, as a hypothetical, that one day in the near future, Prime Minister [Avigdor] Lieberman’s government (don’t laugh, it’s not funny) proposes a bill that echoes the recent call by some rabbis to discourage Jews from selling their homes to Arabs. Or let’s say that Lieberman’s government annexes swaths of the West Bank in order to take in Jewish settlements, but announces summarily that the Arabs in the annexed territory are in fact citizens of Jordan, and can vote there if they want to, but they won’t be voting in Israel. What happens then?” Say what you will about Lieberman but, actually, his position has always been that some Arab towns and villages that are part of Israel should be given to a Palestinian state while Jewish settlement blocs are annexed to Israel. That may not be what the Palestinians want or even what many Israelis want but the outcome Lieberman desires would be a democratic and Jewish state.

Vladmir Putin’s political opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky was convicted of money laundering and embezzlement yesterday in what many have denounced as a show-trial. The verdict came as no surprise to Khodorkovsky, who calmly read a book as the judge issued the decision. U.S. officials have offered some token condemnations of the conviction, but clearly the Obama administration is unwilling to take any action that might disrupt the “reset” process with Russia just days after the New START treaty was ratified by Congress.

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangarai may be brought up on treason charges, after WikiLeaks cables revealed that he privately asked the U.S. to keep sanctions against his country in place: “State media reports have said hardline supporters of the president, Robert Mugabe, want an official inquiry into Tsvangirai’s discussion of international sanctions with the US ambassador in Harare. Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party said last week the government should draft a law that makes it a treasonable offence to call for sanctions.” The punishment for high treason is the death penalty in Zimbabwe. Tsvangarai, a longtime foe of the dictatorial Mugabe, has discovered that being inside his government may be as dangerous as being outside of it.

President Obama continues to use the argument that Guantanamo Bay is al Qaeda’s “number one recruitment tool.” But how often do terror leaders actually mention Gitmo? At the Weekly Standard, Thomas Joscelyn scours the transcripts of the public speeches of al Qaeda leaders since 2009, and finds that very few refer to the detention facility.

The unwillingness of many libertarians to compromise ideological principles – even among themselves – prevents the movement from gaining any serious political power, writes Christopher Beam in New York magazine: “It’s no coincidence that most libertarians discover the philosophy as teenagers. At best, libertarianism means pursuing your own self-interest, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else. At worst, as in Ayn Rand’s teachings, it’s an explicit celebration of narcissism. ‘Man’s first duty is to himself,’ says the young architect Howard Roark in his climactic speech in The Fountainhead. ‘His moral obligation is to do what he wishes.’ Roark utters these words after dynamiting his own project, since his vision for the structure had been altered without his permission. The message: Never compromise.”

In case you needed a reminder on what a joke the UN is, Mary Katharine Ham rounded up the top 10 most “UN-believable” moments of 2010. Number 4: “The UN narrowly avoided putting Iran on its Commission on the Status of Women — a sort of sop to the Islamic Republic in the wake of its rejection for the Human Rights Council — thanks to loud push-back from the U.S. and human-rights groups. Perhaps stoning was a bridge too far. But it does now boast Saudi Arabia as a member of the commission. Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, must always wear abaya in public, and are punished for being in public without a male relative as an escort.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas criticizes Israel as an obstacle to peace, and promises that an independent state of Palestine won’t allow a single Israeli within its borders. “We have frankly said, and always will say: If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it,” Abbas told reporters on Saturday. (Cue crickets chirping from the left).

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Goldberg groundlessly worries about whether Israel will soon cease being a democracy: “Let’s just say, as a hypothetical, that one day in the near future, Prime Minister [Avigdor] Lieberman’s government (don’t laugh, it’s not funny) proposes a bill that echoes the recent call by some rabbis to discourage Jews from selling their homes to Arabs. Or let’s say that Lieberman’s government annexes swaths of the West Bank in order to take in Jewish settlements, but announces summarily that the Arabs in the annexed territory are in fact citizens of Jordan, and can vote there if they want to, but they won’t be voting in Israel. What happens then?” Say what you will about Lieberman but, actually, his position has always been that some Arab towns and villages that are part of Israel should be given to a Palestinian state while Jewish settlement blocs are annexed to Israel. That may not be what the Palestinians want or even what many Israelis want but the outcome Lieberman desires would be a democratic and Jewish state.

As if we needed any more evidence that Robert Mugabe will not leave office without a fight: yesterday, Mugabe’s security officers harassed a fact-finding group including the American, British and Japanese ambassadors attempting to interview people in hospitals who had been tortured by the Mugabe regime. Read this short account of the bravery of our men in Harare:

Kevin Stirr, the U.S. Embassy’s democracy and governance officer, was asked by a security agent what the group had been doing. “Looking at people who have been beaten,” he said. The Central Intelligence Organisation agent replied: “We are going to beat you thoroughly, too”, before turning away and returning to his car. Mr Stirr pulled open the door and shouted at him.

The two agents in the vehicle tried to flee, but James McGee, the U.S. Ambassador, stood in their path. When they tried to push him away with the car, he sat heavily on the bonnet. He went on to take photographs of the agents, who were trying to hide their faces.

Zimbabwean agents threatened to beat an American embassy officer and tried to run over the U.S. Ambassador with their car? If Mugabe is acting this way with Western diplomats, one can only imagine what he has in store for his own people.

As if we needed any more evidence that Robert Mugabe will not leave office without a fight: yesterday, Mugabe’s security officers harassed a fact-finding group including the American, British and Japanese ambassadors attempting to interview people in hospitals who had been tortured by the Mugabe regime. Read this short account of the bravery of our men in Harare:

Kevin Stirr, the U.S. Embassy’s democracy and governance officer, was asked by a security agent what the group had been doing. “Looking at people who have been beaten,” he said. The Central Intelligence Organisation agent replied: “We are going to beat you thoroughly, too”, before turning away and returning to his car. Mr Stirr pulled open the door and shouted at him.

The two agents in the vehicle tried to flee, but James McGee, the U.S. Ambassador, stood in their path. When they tried to push him away with the car, he sat heavily on the bonnet. He went on to take photographs of the agents, who were trying to hide their faces.

Zimbabwean agents threatened to beat an American embassy officer and tried to run over the U.S. Ambassador with their car? If Mugabe is acting this way with Western diplomats, one can only imagine what he has in store for his own people.

In the aftermath of tomorrow’s presidential and parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe, one possible outcome may be a massive influx of refugees into neighboring countries fleeing political violence. There is no chance that Robert Mugabe will accept any result other than victory for him and his ZANU-PF party. Though Mugabe has executed all the usual vote-rigging tactics in anticipation of the election, sentiment against him runs so strong that manipulation of the election could likely result in violence.

Zimbabwe’s small community of Jews — numbering no more than 300 — is particularly vulnerable, as most of them are elderly. Due to the massive inflation of the past 8 years, their savings have disappeared, and many depend on families abroad or on Jewish philanthropy. (Peter Godwin’s recently-published memoir, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, is a searing account of one Jewish family’s struggle to survive in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.) Mugabe is prone to anti-Semitic outbursts, and has long expressed support for Palestinian terrorist organizations. Though they are numerically small and represent no threat whatsoever to his regime, the Jewish community of Zimbabwe would be an easy group for Mugabe to scapegoat as he sinks to even further levels of desperation.

Claudia Braude has a piece in this week’s Forward reporting from Harare on the state of the Zimbabwean Jewish community. She writes that contingency plans are being drawn up by an African Jewish organization to help Zimbabwe’s Jews emigrate should they find themselves in physical danger following the election. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, the Israeli government sponsored a series of heroic missions to rescue Ethiopian Jews wishing to flee oppression and make Aliyah. Perhaps the time has finally arrived for another Operation Moses.

In the aftermath of tomorrow’s presidential and parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe, one possible outcome may be a massive influx of refugees into neighboring countries fleeing political violence. There is no chance that Robert Mugabe will accept any result other than victory for him and his ZANU-PF party. Though Mugabe has executed all the usual vote-rigging tactics in anticipation of the election, sentiment against him runs so strong that manipulation of the election could likely result in violence.

Zimbabwe’s small community of Jews — numbering no more than 300 — is particularly vulnerable, as most of them are elderly. Due to the massive inflation of the past 8 years, their savings have disappeared, and many depend on families abroad or on Jewish philanthropy. (Peter Godwin’s recently-published memoir, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, is a searing account of one Jewish family’s struggle to survive in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.) Mugabe is prone to anti-Semitic outbursts, and has long expressed support for Palestinian terrorist organizations. Though they are numerically small and represent no threat whatsoever to his regime, the Jewish community of Zimbabwe would be an easy group for Mugabe to scapegoat as he sinks to even further levels of desperation.

Claudia Braude has a piece in this week’s Forward reporting from Harare on the state of the Zimbabwean Jewish community. She writes that contingency plans are being drawn up by an African Jewish organization to help Zimbabwe’s Jews emigrate should they find themselves in physical danger following the election. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, the Israeli government sponsored a series of heroic missions to rescue Ethiopian Jews wishing to flee oppression and make Aliyah. Perhaps the time has finally arrived for another Operation Moses.

The feckless response of the British government to the barbaric treatment of one of its citizens, Gillian Gibbons—imprisoned by the Sudanese government for allowing her classroom of seven-year-olds to name a stuffed animal “Muhammed”—is not the type of “diplomacy” that ought become a matter of course when dealing with religious fascists and tyrants. To its credit, the British government is acting quite differently—under great pressure from its craven, European allies—in response to the scheduled appearance of Robert Mugabe at an upcoming European/African Union summit in Lisbon which starts this Saturday.

Mrs. Gibbons has become a literal hostage of the Sudanese regime; her very life is in the hands of Islamist tyrants. Likewise the European Union has become, (wittingly, to its shame) the hostage of the African Union, many of whose member states—namely those belonging to the Southern African Development Community regional group—are making their presence at this weekend’s conference conditional upon Mugabe’s presence. Not only are SADC’s members threatening to boycott the conference if Mugabe is not invited, they are simultaneously demanding that the Zimbabwe crisis itself not be on the conference agenda. The Executive Secretary of SADC stated that “SADC will not go to Lisbon to discuss Zimbabwe because the summit is not about Zimbabwe, but about relations between the EU and Africa,” he said. Mugabe has duly thanked the members of SADC, telling a crowd in Harare last week, “I want to express our gratitude to our fellow members of SADC for their support of Zimbabwe in its assertion to defend its sovereignty against the onslaught that has come from Britain and its allies.”

“Relations between the EU and Africa,” however, have everything to do with Zimbabwe. Considering the billions of dollars in aid money that Western governments give annually to African ones, the governance of African states is certainly pertinent to the nations forking over so much dough, indeed, “governance and human rights” are one of 5 topics that are on the conference agenda. So if the SADC states see fit to prop up, exalt, and equip a murderous dictator whose economic policies have gravely affected European businesses and who has violated the human rights of thousands of British subjects–to say nothing of those policies which have led to the deaths of untold thousands of Mugabe’s own people and created one of the largest refugee crises in the world–it’s difficult to see how this situation does not fit under the purview of the European Union’s relations with its African allies.

Earlier this year, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown showed some spine and stated that he would not attend the summit if Mugabe were to be there. Mugabe has confirmed his attendance for the weekend, and the European Union—by indulging the petty whims of African states—has demonstrated its favoritism for a tyrant over the leader of one of the world’s great democracies. Thus far, the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Mirek Topolanek, is the only other European leader to follow Brown’s example. This is an encouraging sign, however minor, that at least some Europeans understand the importance of not caving into the demands of tyrants, or their enablers.

The feckless response of the British government to the barbaric treatment of one of its citizens, Gillian Gibbons—imprisoned by the Sudanese government for allowing her classroom of seven-year-olds to name a stuffed animal “Muhammed”—is not the type of “diplomacy” that ought become a matter of course when dealing with religious fascists and tyrants. To its credit, the British government is acting quite differently—under great pressure from its craven, European allies—in response to the scheduled appearance of Robert Mugabe at an upcoming European/African Union summit in Lisbon which starts this Saturday.

Mrs. Gibbons has become a literal hostage of the Sudanese regime; her very life is in the hands of Islamist tyrants. Likewise the European Union has become, (wittingly, to its shame) the hostage of the African Union, many of whose member states—namely those belonging to the Southern African Development Community regional group—are making their presence at this weekend’s conference conditional upon Mugabe’s presence. Not only are SADC’s members threatening to boycott the conference if Mugabe is not invited, they are simultaneously demanding that the Zimbabwe crisis itself not be on the conference agenda. The Executive Secretary of SADC stated that “SADC will not go to Lisbon to discuss Zimbabwe because the summit is not about Zimbabwe, but about relations between the EU and Africa,” he said. Mugabe has duly thanked the members of SADC, telling a crowd in Harare last week, “I want to express our gratitude to our fellow members of SADC for their support of Zimbabwe in its assertion to defend its sovereignty against the onslaught that has come from Britain and its allies.”

“Relations between the EU and Africa,” however, have everything to do with Zimbabwe. Considering the billions of dollars in aid money that Western governments give annually to African ones, the governance of African states is certainly pertinent to the nations forking over so much dough, indeed, “governance and human rights” are one of 5 topics that are on the conference agenda. So if the SADC states see fit to prop up, exalt, and equip a murderous dictator whose economic policies have gravely affected European businesses and who has violated the human rights of thousands of British subjects–to say nothing of those policies which have led to the deaths of untold thousands of Mugabe’s own people and created one of the largest refugee crises in the world–it’s difficult to see how this situation does not fit under the purview of the European Union’s relations with its African allies.

Earlier this year, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown showed some spine and stated that he would not attend the summit if Mugabe were to be there. Mugabe has confirmed his attendance for the weekend, and the European Union—by indulging the petty whims of African states—has demonstrated its favoritism for a tyrant over the leader of one of the world’s great democracies. Thus far, the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Mirek Topolanek, is the only other European leader to follow Brown’s example. This is an encouraging sign, however minor, that at least some Europeans understand the importance of not caving into the demands of tyrants, or their enablers.

Last week James D. McGee, the new American ambassador to Zimbabwe, formally presented his diplomatic credentials to Robert Mugabe. This will not be an easy assignment, and Harare is a place where diplomats earn their chops. McGee’s predecessor, Christopher Dell, is the new Deputy Chief of Mission to Afghanistan. Amidst all of Mugabe’s paranoid rantings about supposed British and American plots to overthrow him, Dell quipped on his way out that the Zimbabwean government was “doing regime change to itself.”

Welcoming McGee to Zimbabwe was Caesar Zvayi, the political editor of the Herald, the state newspaper. He begins his column by stating that McGee, who is black, “is one of our own, at least as far as skin color is concerned.” This is but the least of Zvayi’s offenses to reason (never mind prose style). He writes that Zimbabwe “hope[s] he will not shame the ancestors in whose loins he crossed the Atlantic to his adopted home” and that McGee “should never forget that he is descended from slave ancestors and those who enslaved his forebears are the same people trying to preserve ill-gotten colonial gains in Zimbabwe today.”

Zvayi’s piece really ought to be read in full, for there are not many countries left in the world in which the official newspapers contain such openly racialist propaganda.

Last week James D. McGee, the new American ambassador to Zimbabwe, formally presented his diplomatic credentials to Robert Mugabe. This will not be an easy assignment, and Harare is a place where diplomats earn their chops. McGee’s predecessor, Christopher Dell, is the new Deputy Chief of Mission to Afghanistan. Amidst all of Mugabe’s paranoid rantings about supposed British and American plots to overthrow him, Dell quipped on his way out that the Zimbabwean government was “doing regime change to itself.”

Welcoming McGee to Zimbabwe was Caesar Zvayi, the political editor of the Herald, the state newspaper. He begins his column by stating that McGee, who is black, “is one of our own, at least as far as skin color is concerned.” This is but the least of Zvayi’s offenses to reason (never mind prose style). He writes that Zimbabwe “hope[s] he will not shame the ancestors in whose loins he crossed the Atlantic to his adopted home” and that McGee “should never forget that he is descended from slave ancestors and those who enslaved his forebears are the same people trying to preserve ill-gotten colonial gains in Zimbabwe today.”

Zvayi’s piece really ought to be read in full, for there are not many countries left in the world in which the official newspapers contain such openly racialist propaganda.

It is truly a boon for observers of South African politics that the country’s president writes a several-thousand word message every week to his supporters. Thabo Mbeki’s weekly letters are not the stuff of speech writers and consultants; he is a true intellectual, however fetid his ideas. Reading his letters reveals something quite ominous about the political future of South Africa.

This week, Mbeki lets the ANC’s Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe borrow his pen to write about Zimbabwe. Prompting this angry piece was British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s threat to boycott an upcoming European Union/African Union summit if Mugabe were to attend. Both the EU and AU chose Mugabe over Brown, and this is a choice that obviously delights Mbeki and Motlanthe. In this letter Motlanthe carries Mbeki’s water, perhaps because what Motlanthe says is too egregious for the South African president to utter himself. Motlanthe uses the diplomatic row between Great Britain and Zimbabwe to launch into a tirade about British colonial history.

Motlanthe believes that Great Britain is trying to effect “regime change” in Harare, and indignantly asks why the British government did not advocate regime change for the white, rebel colony of Rhodesia, which preceded the creation of a democratic Zimbabwe. In so doing, Motlanthe ignores that the British government declared the colony’s 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence an act of treason. Britain used its international heft to impose strict United Nations sanctions on the white regime in Rhodesia for well over a decade, contributing to its downfall in 1980. Britain played no small part in bringing the Rhodesian government to its knees, discrediting the moderate black Bishop Abel Muzorewa (who had formed a coalition government with whites and won a democratic, multi-racial election in 1979). Were it not for Margaret Thatcher’s willingness to side with Jimmy Carter’s and Andrew Young’s diplomacy, Robert Mugabe might not have become president 27 years ago.

It is truly a boon for observers of South African politics that the country’s president writes a several-thousand word message every week to his supporters. Thabo Mbeki’s weekly letters are not the stuff of speech writers and consultants; he is a true intellectual, however fetid his ideas. Reading his letters reveals something quite ominous about the political future of South Africa.

This week, Mbeki lets the ANC’s Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe borrow his pen to write about Zimbabwe. Prompting this angry piece was British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s threat to boycott an upcoming European Union/African Union summit if Mugabe were to attend. Both the EU and AU chose Mugabe over Brown, and this is a choice that obviously delights Mbeki and Motlanthe. In this letter Motlanthe carries Mbeki’s water, perhaps because what Motlanthe says is too egregious for the South African president to utter himself. Motlanthe uses the diplomatic row between Great Britain and Zimbabwe to launch into a tirade about British colonial history.

Motlanthe believes that Great Britain is trying to effect “regime change” in Harare, and indignantly asks why the British government did not advocate regime change for the white, rebel colony of Rhodesia, which preceded the creation of a democratic Zimbabwe. In so doing, Motlanthe ignores that the British government declared the colony’s 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence an act of treason. Britain used its international heft to impose strict United Nations sanctions on the white regime in Rhodesia for well over a decade, contributing to its downfall in 1980. Britain played no small part in bringing the Rhodesian government to its knees, discrediting the moderate black Bishop Abel Muzorewa (who had formed a coalition government with whites and won a democratic, multi-racial election in 1979). Were it not for Margaret Thatcher’s willingness to side with Jimmy Carter’s and Andrew Young’s diplomacy, Robert Mugabe might not have become president 27 years ago.

But what’s telling is that Motlanthe (and by extension, Mbeki) is so outraged at what he believes is the West’s desire to perpetrate “regime change” in Zimbabwe. Thabo Mbeki and the ANC called for violent revolution against the white minority government of South Africa—and while it was a boon to every South African that the transition to democracy occurred peacefully—it was nonetheless true that regime change in apartheid South Africa was a moral necessity. Can anyone honestly deny that the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe today is far worse than that of South African apartheid? Why, therefore, is regime change inappropriate in Zimbabwe? Because the ruling party is black-led.

Regime change does not necessarily have to come through military intervention, but the country will be unable to recover from its devastated state unless Mugabe is ousted from power and the country’s political apparatus is wiped clean of ZANU-PF, the socialist party Mugabe leads.

Motlanthe also launches into an abbreviated history of Zimbabwean land reform, which not-so-subtly exculpates Mugabe’s seizures of private land as a justified response to Great Britain’s failure to rectify an historic grievance. There is no mention of the fact that much of the land Mugabe stole was in fact purchased legally by whites after 1980, nor that he lost (in spite of his best attempts to rig it) a 2000 constitutional referendum that would have given him more executive power and the ability to seize land at will without compensation. Mugabe’s flagrant destruction of the rule of law thereafter, which triggered a series of events leading to today’s mess, is nowhere to be found in the ANC’s analysis of the situation.

People often wonder why South Africa stands so steadfastly by Mugabe as he ruins his country and thousands of Zimbabweans cross the border into South Africa every week. The answer can be found in this statement, full of anachronistic resentment towards Great Britain and lacking any criticism of Robert Mugabe or concern for the plight of the millions of starving, politically oppressed Zimbabweans. Once again, the African National Congress unmistakably reveals itself to those who continue to be blinded by its progressive rhetoric: it is not the liberal architect of the “Rainbow Nation,” but a racial nationalist outfit sympathetic with and openly supportive of tyrants around the world.